thoughts

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Why Cover Bands Never Get A Recording Contract

Right at the end of our vacation each year, Sauble Beach puts on a festival called Sandfest. It’s a weekend with activities for the whole family, right on the beach.

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There is a sandcastle building competition that brings in some professionals (I never knew there were pro sand events), and amateurs alike. Everyone gets a plot of sand and about eight hours to build something.

It’s pretty amazing and creative what some come up with.

There is also an antique car show involving a couple hundred old cars parked on the beach. They’re judged by officials and the crowds of people walking the rows of cars, taking pictures and oohing and awing at them.

Some of the cars I’ve seen don’t look like antiques to me – in fact, some of the models I drove when I was younger! … That’s when you realize that you’re an antique too, so you just keep quiet about it, say “nice car”, and move on.

There is always music that is a focal point of the weekend. They usually have bands Friday and Saturday.

They’ve had bands that are starting out and trying to get noticed, old bands that just do gigs on the weekends, but also some bands that were once well known and had songs on the radio.

But probably by far, most of the bands at Sandfest are cover bands – you know, bands that try to imitate a famous group from the past.

These cover bands, or imitations in some cases, look like the original band members, talk like them in between songs, mimic their mannerisms while singing, and, of course, try to sound like them vocally and musically.

I watched bands that dressed like the original band, but after that weren’t that close to the real group’s sound. Then there were those whose voices sounded pretty much like the original, but they weren’t dead on with the music. They just didn’t have it instrumentally.

The thing about cover bands is they try hard to look and sound like the real group, but there is something that isn’t quite right.

There is always something that is off. And where you notice it the most is how they carry themselves, how they conduct themselves onstage.

They are acting; they are not themselves, and just don’t come across as the real thing. The real group doesn’t act; they are just themselves, and not trying to be something they are not.

There is a sense of authenticity that the real group has that a cover band can never manufacture.

Even when they are able to get so close to the original, they are not being themselves. They are pretending to be something, someone they are not. And everyone knows it.

Here’s the thing: We must be very careful that we are not merely imitating a real Christian – looking like one, acting like one, even talking like one, but just performing to please an audience who expects to see and hear a certain presentation. The only way to be  sure you are the real thing is to look inside yourself. Are you interacting with God, applying the things He says to your life, then living that out for everyone to see? If so, you are authentic, and people can tell. If not, you’re “covering” the Christian life and no matter how good you get at it, you’ll just be a cover band, and you’ll never make it with the true audience, God Himself.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: In what part of your life do you find it easier to imitate than be real? Leave your comment below.

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The Future Is Not What You Might Think

I’ve seen the future and it doesn’t look too bright. … Of course, that may have been because I saw the future in a dimly lit movie theatre.

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I don’t go to the movie theatre all that often, and even less to a matinee, but my wife and I were on vacation and we decided to do a movie and dinner.

Shortly after seating myself in the high-backed, swivel chair with my armrest ready to be loaded with a 40 oz cup of coke, I saw the future. Maybe it wasn’t my future, but it was definitely the future!

I started to notice that the people sitting around me were all quite a bit older that Lily and me. And as others came in, I noticed it took them a long time to walk up the stairs to their seats.

Some of them stopped half way to take a breather, others used the handrail like they had just dropped off their walkers and were in need of a little support.

There was some guy behind me who was rustling a bag of something that he probably smuggled into the theatre. I’m sure he couldn’t hear the constant noise that bag was making but  it was definitely not music to my ears!

At that point, it dawned on me how much we had paid to get in. When it seemed like we were only being charged for one ticket, I had questioned the cashier on the price. The girl assured me that it was cheap Tuesday.

I started to put it all together. I never really knew who went to matinees before; I had thought they was mostly for kids’ movies. I suddenly realized that it’s seniors who go to matinees – and not just young seniors, it’s those who are in their seventies and up.

The cashier must have taken us for seniors and charged us the seniors’ rate for cheap Tuesdays.

And now you too know the future: some day going to a matinee will be the normal thing to do.

It’s practical because there are no lineups and there are lots of seats to choose from. Movies are loud so no need to turn on that nasty, bothersome hearing aide. And you get out in time to have dinner at the seniors’ residence or at least before the evening rush at the restaurants.

The whole thing was an eye opening experience. It was the first time I came out of a movie theatre squinting because I’d just spent a couple of hours in the dark and the sun was still high in the sky.

It wasn’t a bad experience; in fact, some day I can see it being all the rage.

Here’s the thing: When we look to the future, we usually look ahead 5, 10, 20 years from now. We imagine and plan for what might be or what we want life to be like. But when we look that way, we miss the future we should be focussing on. In the book of Colossians, chapter three and verses one and two, it tells us to “set our hearts and minds on things above.” We often limit our thinking, planning and preparing to what’s coming ahead in this life. But God wants us to be thinking, planning, preparing and living with our whole being focussed on what’s above – on heaven. So in your future planning, think of things above as you prepare and live out your days here below.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What do you usually focus on when thinking of the future? Leave your comment below.

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How Persistence Works Wonders

It’s amazing what persistence brings. We might not have the same ability as someone else but if we persist the results will be good.

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We haven’t had much rain at our cottage over the last little while. I don’t usually mind though because we go long periods of time between visits, especially during the spring.

When we’re not there, my brother cuts my lawn for me. I don’t really want it growing like crazy so he doesn’t have to cut it as much.

The problem with that is, by the time the summer drought comes, my lawn is all brown, with mostly sand and a few green weeds. There’s just not much else.

To give you an idea of what my lawn is like right now, I haven’t cut it in three weeks and it still doesn’t need cutting. It looks like it is in a semi-desert climate! All I need to do is take a whipper snipper to a few weeds that are raising their heads above the dirt.

However, my brother’s lawn is lush and green; his grass is thick with no weeds at all.

The difference is a stark contrast. His cottage looks like it is in a little oasis surrounded by a parched and weary land.

Now my brother is no landscaper, and he’s not some kind of super horticulturist. All he does is put water on his lawn, and not just now and then, but regularly, every day.

He has been persistent to the point of installing in-ground sprinklers on timers. So every day, whether he is at his cottage or not, his grass gets the water it needs to thrive and grow thick.

On the other hand, I bought a soaker hose a few days ago and watered my lawn for a couple of hours … It looks just the same as before.

It’s not just the water, it’s the persistence of putting the water on the lawn that makes the difference.

In fact, persistence has made my brother’s lawn respond to water better than mine does.

Yesterday we got a downpour. The rain came down so hard we had puddles all over the lawn. My lawn got more water in the first fifteen minutes of that downpour than it did in the two hours I watered it the day before.

So today I thought I would see a difference, maybe just a little more green, maybe a few more patches of grass starting to spring up. No, it looked like it did the day before and the day before that.

It reminded me of the dream Joseph interpreted for Pharaoh in the Bible, where the skinny stocks of corn ate the thick full ones and still looked as skinny and scrawny as they did before.

Over at my brother’s place, after that rain last night, even the one patch of grass that doesn’t get quite as much water as the rest had responded and was now as green as ever.

Here’s the thing: We may not be the greatest prayer warriors, or be able to dig the deepest into the riches of a Bible passage. We may not be theological giants like some. But persistence in praying and reading your Bible will pay off in a lush, rich understanding of God and result in a vibrant relationship with Him.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What do you need to be more persistent in? Leave your comment below.

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How Distance Gets In the Way Of Your Relationships 

We have all become distant from someone or something at times in our lives. Sometimes it’s due to personal issues that have arisen; sometimes proximity or miles are at the core of the issue.

 

I remember when we moved from Edmonton to Kingston. Our kids were just 6 and 4, and didn’t completely understand the whole distance thing. We were at the end of our third day of travel, and had arrived at the motel we were staying at for the night. I don’t think we’d even unpacked our bags.

Our 4 year old son was sitting on the bed beside his sister. It was one of those moments that no one was saying anything; we were just kind of getting ourselves adjusted to the room for the night.

Out of nowhere Michael said, “I want to go home.” It was a sad comment coming from a little boy who didn’t know where he was or where he was going. What made the comment worse was his big sister’s response.

Immediately after Michael said “I want to go home”, Karlie replied, “Michael, we don’t have a home.”

… A killer comment to a couple of parents who were taking their kids away from what they knew as home and were feeling a little in limbo ourselves!

At that moment we all felt distant from everything we were close to, familiar and comfortable with.

There are other times when disagreements, arguments or even interpretations of events cause two people to feel distant from each other. You could be in the same home at the time, and that distance might only last a few minutes or an hour, but there is a sense of distance between the two individuals.

The other day, I experienced yet another kind of distance. Lily and I were staying in a hotel room. The room was great, very comfortable; we liked the room from the moment we entered it. We felt at home in it.

One of the features of the room was that it had a king-sized bed … and for two nights, Lily and I felt distant from each other.

We didn’t have an argument, and we didn’t sleep in separate beds – we just lost each other in the king-sized bed!

In a bed that big, you can go a whole night and never even bump up against each other. It’s like you are sleeping by yourself because as far as you can stretch or move, there’s no contact with your spouse.

You actually have to work at not becoming distant from each other in a king-sized bed. Both mornings I found myself on one side of the bed while Lil was way over on the other side.

I don’t know what it was, but we just drifted apart in the night … both nights. We didn’t want to drift apart, but it happened in spite of our desire and intent.

Here’s the thing: You can become distant from God when sin in your life keeps you running from Him. You can feel distant when you hold something against God because He didn’t answer your prayer request. But you can also just drift away from Him, become distant from Him, by not working at staying in close proximity. Make sure that you are actively seeking God, talking to Him, spending time with Him and His word. Make time to worship Him everyday. Don’t become distant.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What have you become distant from in the past year? Leave your comment below.

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The Difficulty of Maintaining Discipline

Have you ever noticed that there is a chain reaction when it comes to discipline? When you are disciplined in doing one thing, you find it easy to be disciplined with other things as well.

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However, the opposite is also true: a lack of discipline in one area leads to a rash of indiscipline in one’s life.

I experienced this on vacation this year. I know, vacation is the time when you’re supposed to throw discipline out the window and just enjoy life as it comes.

What I’ve discovered is life isn’t much unless you make it something, and that takes some discipline.

Before my vacation, I was in a routine of exercising thirty minutes or more a day. I could do that because I have a gym set up in my basement. If I couldn’t go biking, I could row or ride my stationary bike for half an hour.

While on vacation, I didn’t have the gym option. But I had time – lots of it – to fit in a bike ride or a brisk walk, or swimming each day.

But with so much time available, the tendency is to not be so disciplined in organizing it. After all, I was on vacation! You tend to not make decisions, to just relax and get to things later.

What happens is, all of a sudden, later is gone or something comes up that keeps you from making a decision to, for instance, go for a bike ride.

Once that happens, it can set you up in a pattern. Pretty soon you’re not making wise decisions on when you go to bed at night, so you sleep in and don’t get a good start to the next day. You become less motivated to make a decision to exercise or take that day trip, and you do what you’re supposed to do on vacation – relax, take it easy.

But doing that makes you a little lethargic. You sit down to read or watch TV and easily fall asleep. You spend some of the best part of the day sleeping and when you wake up, you feel like you’ve lost something, and you don’t feel rested.

So you stay up late, have a few snacks and this becomes the pattern of your vacation.

Instead of the dream of your vacation being filled with biking, golf, beach time, and day trips around the region, you end up with days in a row where you don’t feel like you did anything. They feel wasted.

Even on vacation you still want to accomplish something, even if it’s just having some fun.

Well I’m not going to let this vacation get away from me. I’ve seen what the undisciplined life leads to and I’m changing it now.

I’m going biking before lunch today and then spending some time at the beach. I also think a walk down by the water at sunset is in order … that might only cost me a small raspberry gelato.

Here’s the thing: When you are on vacation or on a business or family trip somewhere, it’s easy to get out of your regular routine. Being out of your routine will lead to being undisciplined with God, not spending time with Him, or following His lead in your life. So when you are out of your regular routine, discipline yourself to a new routine, and keep yourself close to God.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: When do you find it hard to stay disciplined? Leave your comment below.

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The Secret To Getting Past Procrastination

I’ve discovered an easy way to tackle projects. I wish I knew this secret a long time ago; it would have helped me to get moving on school assignments and generally anything I wanted or needed to do.

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This year, in early spring, I decided there were a few things I wanted to do around our cottage over the summer months. There were five projects in all.

Five projects seemed like a lot when we got up on vacation and I hesitated getting started on any of them. But finally I decided to start with the one project I wanted to do most.

Deciding which project to start on seemed to be the key to get me going from doing nothing to doing something. … And that’s the kickstart you need to get a project completed.

When you are facing something big, like five projects, it can seem like there’s too much to do, or you don’t know where to start. You can talk yourself right out of doing them.

It doesn’t have to be many projects either. It could be one large project or just a complicated one. When you think of all that it takes to get from start to finish, it can be overwhelming.

… And that thinking or feeling can stop you in your tracks from making progress.

The secret is to not think of the whole, but to think of only the first thing. Another way to look at it is to ask, “What’s the one thing I need to do first?”

That one thing can be as simple as deciding which of the five projects you want to complete the most. For me, that one thing was not that hard and it didn’t even take much time.

It only took me about ten minutes to decide which project I wanted to do first. Then what followed was just as important: I decided what I needed to do next.

That seems to be the key to keep yourself from stepping back and looking at the whole project start to finish, and in the process getting overwhelmed again. You just decide what the next thing you have to do is.

What I’ve found is that there are usually several small, easy steps I can do at the beginning, before I need to spend a lot of time on the project.

And those beginning easy steps serve to get me going. By the time I’ve completed them, I want to keep going and I’m mentally ready to invest more time and energy on the project.

In other words, I’ve slowly got myself to fully commit to and embrace the project to completion.

I completed the first project, moved on to the second and, in the process of completing that, realized I didn’t need to do two of the projects. … That leaves me with one left.

And today I will do something very small to kick-start the work on that. All it entails is to take off some duct tape, open an access door and survey my hot water tank. That shouldn’t take more than five minutes.

Here’s the thing: When you feel you need to discover more about Christ, draw closer to Him, or sense your relationship with God needs to move to the next level, just decide on one thing you need to do to kick-start that process. Maybe that one thing is deciding on a time, a book, a method. Start there and don’t forget to determine what the next step will be as well.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What project have you been procrastinating with that needs a kick-start? Leave your comment below.

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How To Prepare For Being Startled

Some people get startled more easily than others. It doesn’t take much for me to jump when someone happens to show up in my office without me hearing them come in or seeing them out of the corner of my eye.

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I don’t know why it is; I’m not a nervous person. But if someone appears out of nowhere and even says “hi”, whoa, that gets my heart pumping fast.

I remember years ago when I was a youth pastor, we would play a game called “Sardines”. It was a version of hide and seek, where we would turn out all the lights in the church, making it pitch black dark.

One person was “it” and his job was to hide. Everyone else tried to find him and then hide with him in the dark until there was just one person looking for the whole group.

During the game, I took it as my job to scare the life out of the junior high girls. I would go in a room and wait for a pack of girls to enter. They could see nothing but, of course, they couldn’t stop talking.

At a quiet moment, I would yell at the top of my lungs and, though I couldn’t see them, I knew by their reaction they had hit their heads on the ceiling they had been scared so badly … but that was a long time ago.

A few weeks ago, Lily and I were sleeping, pretty much sound asleep, when there was a loud crash. It woke both of us up. I definitely was started, but Lil … I thought she was going to have a coronary!

She couldn’t calm down after that; she was concerned that someone might be in the house. I tried to convince her that everything was alright, but nothing would get her to settle until I checked the house.

So I went to get up and that’s when I saw what had startled us and ruined our sleep. It was a wood valance that was over our closet doors. Apparently, the manufacturers thought that 3M made a double-sided tape that was strong enough to hold up a 6 foot light piece of wood … forever.

For whatever reason, the tape lost its grip in the middle of the night – at 1:57 am to be precise.

Though I wasn’t startled nearly as badly as Lily, being woken up at that time in that way got my mind going and I had a very difficult time getting back to sleep.

I think for Lily, her heart rate shot up so high so fast that it exhausted her and she fell back asleep rather quickly.

The effects of being startled don’t last a long time, but it probably take a few years off your life every time it happens. So my advice is be aware – always.

Here’s the thing: There is going to be a time when either we die or Christ returns that will definitely be startling. It will shake us all to the core, but the only way you will be able to get calm after that, the only way you will get peace is to know Jesus Christ as your saviour. Otherwise, that startle will be just the beginning of an eternity of fear. I suggest you prepare now if you haven’t already. Find out about Christ, who He is, what He did and how He can change your life.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What startles you? Leave your comment below.

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Why You Should Sit Still For Needles

In my last post, I wrote about not being too keen on going to see the doctor. One of the reasons is they like to stick you with needles.

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Actually, the doctor doesn’t often give the needles; he gets a nurse to do it. That way the patient doesn’t have any animosity towards his doctor; it’s directed towards the nurse!

So not only does the nurse have to do all the dirty work, she also has to be the bad guy. I’m sure that’s why doctors go to school so long, so they have the upper hand on the nurses. It’s a good gig.

Anyway, I said in my last post that I’m not a real fan of needles. I’m not sure when this started, but If I can avoid them I do. It’s not that they hurt – sure, there’s the prick and maybe a little discomfort, especially if they are injecting a boat load of typhoid in you for going over seas, but it’s not bad.

My problem with needles has to do with the whole process: someone sticking something sharp in you while you are sitting still letting it happen. That’s not natural. … You squirm, you move, you fight back to protect yourself – THAT’S the proper response to any kind of personal invasion.

It also bugs me to see that pointy end go into a vein that’s been all pumped up (man, I’d make a terrible drug addict).

You put all those things together and that might be the reason I don’t like needles.

I don’t even like to get them when they can keep me from another kind of pain. For instance, I don’t get freezing when I go to the dentist. I’d rather face the drill on my own than get a needle.

Besides, I like walking out of the dentist’s office not being numb or feeling like my lips are three inches thick.

I don’t want to be that guy who’s unaware that he’s drooling out the left side of his mouth when being introduced to someone for the first time. I have enough problems with spilling food on my clothing, I don’t need a growing wet spot down the front of my shirt as well.

I once had a fifteen minute discussion with a nurse in a hospital emergency room in Regina, weighing the pros and cons of getting a tetanus shot. When I finally said yes and started to roll up my sleeve, she said, “Oh no, it’s going in your rear.”

Well it took me another five minutes to agree to that. I had visions of tensing up so much she would have to put her foot on my rear to yank the needle out!

… It wasn’t nearly as bad as I imagined it would be.

My latest adventure of having my blood tested last week brought back all my memories. The nurse wasn’t the best at giving needles, but she was quick and that’s maybe just as good.

Here’s the thing: Temptation is like getting a needle, where you purposely put yourself in a place of having a painful experience. If we don’t have an exit plan, or try to avoid being tempted in the first place, it’s like sitting down, keeping still and letting someone stick a needle in you. When temptation has its way with us, it leads to sin and, though maybe the pain of that sin is not felt immediately, there will be pain. I’d urge you to avoid that pain. Don’t sit and take it; have a plan when temptation comes.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What kind of a plan do you have for temptation? Leave a comment below.

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Why It’s So Important To Receive Credit For What We Do

I’ve been counting my steps each day for about three years now. They say we should take at least 10,000 steps a day, so since my heart attack, I’ve been trying to get them in.

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For some people that’s easy; their work or life has them on their feet most of the day. But for a guy like me who sits for great portions of the day, it’s not that easy. I have to work at it.

Now, if I could play golf every day – wouldn’t that be nice – that would do it for me … but that’s not going to happen, so I need to get out of my chair and move to get my steps in.

There are a number of stats that I collect about my health and exercise. I record my weight each day, and how much exercise I do.

I do it for my health. I don’t really care if anyone knows about it, but there is one thing for sure – I want credit for it!

When I walk 10,000 steps in a day, I want the credit. If I exercise for 30 minutes or more in a day, it better get recorded.

I want the satisfaction of knowing that what I’ve done shows up somewhere. I’m not talking about a leaderboard like at a PGA tournament or anything, it just has to show up on the app on my phone that keeps track of all this info.

Well, recently I switched to a new step counter. I lost the old one – in fact I have either lost a step counter or put one through the wash about every 9 months for the last three years. The last one was a tad expensive.

My new step counter, however, is a little more stingy with my steps. Maybe the old one was not quite as accurate as this one, but the point is, I’m not getting credit for the steps I’m taking … or that I think I’m taking.

I mentioned this to Lily, my wife, and she just brushed it off. She said it doesn’t matter whether it records all the steps like the last one or not, “you know what you’ve done”.

That’s true, but what I want is credit! I want to be able to look at my app, whether anyone else ever sees it or not, and be proud of my accomplishment. If it’s not recorded, I have no record. I have nothing to prove to myself that I did it.

My new app gives me awards when I achieve a goal – a little symbol that shows up on the screen of my phone … but I want to see the numbers!

I want to see the graphs, steps going up, weight coming down, exercise staying consistent. I want the credit when I’ve achieved a goal – even if it’s just me who will ever lay eyes on it.

Here’s the thing:  We all want to receive credit for what we do, whether it’s at work, with our family, or even something personal. We want it to be noticed and recognized by someone even if that someone is ourselves. We get that from being made in the image of God. So how does God feel when we fail to recognize what He does, fail to recognize His creative hand in nature, fail to acknowledge Him, not recognize His answer to our prayer, or not appreciate His help in circumstances? Be sure you give God the credit due Him.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What have you done that you would like credit for but have not received it? Leave your comment below.

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How Unfinished Projects Become Invisible

We can get used to living with something that is unfinished. The other day when I was the passenger in a car, the driver pointed out a house to me. He said the owners had been working on that house for over a decade.

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It was a big house but the yard was a mess, all overgrown, with at least two construction vehicles parked haphazardly around the property.

It looked to me like people were living in the house, but the outside of it needed bricks or stucco or something to finish it off.

My first thought was to wonder how they lived for ten years in a house that wasn’t finished. But then I remembered that I’m living with an unfinished project myself.

Recently we changed the railing on our deck. But when it came time to do the stair rail, we kind of put the brakes on. I was a little unsure of how to proceed with one part of it, so we just held off until we could get some advice.

We were so busy for the next couple of weekends that we never got to the store to find out how to finish the task.

Finally, this past week we made it to the hardware store and inquired about what we needed to know.

But now it’s not a priority any more. You see, the railing looks pretty much finished. When we look out our patio doors, all we see is the new railing; we don’t see the part that’s unfinished.

It’s just the steps that don’t have the railing and, though it would finish off the project and look complete, it doesn’t look bad.

When we were working on the project we wanted to get it all finished. I didn’t like leaving the job half done. But the more time that passed, I became less and less concerned that it wasn’t complete.

I’m sure the people living in the unfinished house I saw have the same feelings. They may twinge a little bit when they pull into their yard, but once they get into their house, they don’t see the outside and it’s probably liveable on the inside.

We can get so used to living in that unfinished state that we don’t see what it really looks like any more. We look at the finished part and are satisfied.

Even some visual reminders don’t motivate me. For instance, every time I step into my garage I see a pile of old railing pieces that need to be taken to the dump and some 4×4 posts that need to be cut and are waiting to be placed at the bottom of the stairs.

That doesn’t phase me any more; I’m used to that now.

However, other people take one look and notice what is unfinished and that becomes their focus. … I guess I better put a man on it, and finish it off.

Here’s the thing: While our outer life looks fine to everyone, our inner life can be left unfinished. If we care more about how things look to everyone else, we may not take the time to work on the interior. And we can get very comfortable living in an unfinished state, to the point that we don’t even notice what needs to be worked on any more. Take an inventory of the spiritual work you need most, and put a man on it. Don’t neglect that unfinished work.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What have you left unfinished and just gotten used to? Leave your comment below.